Review: Check, Please!: #Hockey

Title: Check, Please!: #Hockey

Author: Ngozi Ukazu

Page Count: 288

My Rating: 5 TURTLES: AMAZING read. I loved this book, and it's going on my favorites shelf forever! You must get a copy of this book!

Preorder it!

Description:

Helloooo, Internet Land. Bitty here!

Y’all... I might not be ready for this. I may be a former junior figure skating champion, vlogger extraordinaire, and very talented amateur pâtissier, but being a freshman on the Samwell University hockey team is a whole new challenge. It’s nothing like co-ed club hockey back in Georgia! First of all? There’s checking. And then, there is Jack—our very attractive but moody captain.

A collection of the first half of the megapopular webcomic series of the same name, Check, Please!: #Hockey is the first book of a hilarious and stirring two-volume coming-of-age story about hockey, bros, and trying to find yourself during the best four years of your life.

Review:

Oh my God, you guys, this graphic novel made me FEEL things! I never make audible noises when I’m reading things, I don’t even usually laugh at loud if I’m watching comedy shows, but Check, Please!: #Hockey made me laugh and squee at the sheer adorableness of this story! I read this whole thing in one sitting, which never happens, so you know it’s serious!

If you had told me several years ago that some of my favorite stories would heavily feature non-equestrian sports I would have looked at you funny, but this new trend of sports teammates/colleagues falling for each other has arrived and I am 100% here for it. (I’ve included a list of my other favorite books and TV shows that follow this trend at the end of the review and I hope that you’ll check them out).

Teammate to lover stories though

There is so much I love about this story! The art is super fun and thoughtfully drawn. The characters are also so distinct and memorable – I especially love the adorable and earnest Bitty and the party-bro with a heart of gold Shitty (whose real name we may or may not learn throughout the course of this book). And, of course, the main selling point of this book for me, I loved the romance between Bitty and Jack. What can I say? I’m weak for sweet queer romances, especially of the teammate to lover variety, and since there are not nearly enough of them (yet) each one I find is like finding a rare gem.

Also, huge bonus points to this book for having a badass character with my name, even if 99% people refer to her by her nickname, Lardo.

One thing that catches me a little bit off guard about graphic novels is that they tend to feel rushed to me. Check, Please has a great arc, but I wanted, like, five more hockey games, and ten more Bitty and Jack scenes. I think this is partly due to the fact that this is a compilation of web-comics. If I had read each page as it was initially released and had to wait a while for the next installment I don’t think it would feel rushed at all.

I think this would be especially true since the author runs “Bitty’s” Twitter account, so people’s experience with the story continues between installments (such a smart idea). The advanced copy has a sampling of some of these tweets, but promises that the published version will have many, many more. 

Picture of me trying to figure out how hockey works

The only other small thing that I would have liked to see was an in-depth explanation of how hockey works. Most of the other stories I know of that follow sports team dedicates a section where they just explain how the game works. It feels a bit info-dumpy, but also necessary for someone like me who has very little knowledge about anything sport-related. There were some explanations of how hockey works here and there, but by the end I was still pretty confused. 

And if you’re thinking “Gee, Larissa, if only there were a magical device that you could type ‘how does hockey work’ into and get as detailed an answer as you’d like,” point taken. 

Thank goodness my roommate for the NYU publishing program I’m taking lent me her advanced copy that she picked up at Book Expo, but I will definitely be picking up my own copy when it comes out in September! And if you’re as excited about getting your own copy as I am, you can always pre-order it.

Now that I have been introduced to this wonderful comic, I definitely won’t be patient enough to wait for volume two to come out to find out what happens next. Lucky for me (and all of you) this comic is not only available online, but it’s still ongoing! So there’s plenty more in store for Jack, Bitty, Shitty and all the others. 

More Queer sports romances! 

These are the stories that I couldn’t help but think of while reading Check, Please! Did I miss any? Let me know in the comments!

Yuri on Ice (TV show)

All for the Game series (book series)

Fence (comic series)

Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases. 

Guest Post: Tess Keeler

Today I'd like to welcome Tess Keeler to the blog! She was kind enough to shed some light on her process of co-writing a novel with her wife. You can find Everything Comes Back to You on Amazon here.

Hey, everyone!

I’m Tess Keeler, co-author of Everything Comes Back to You, a YA/NA novel centered around two male childhood best friends who, you guessed it, fall in love. My wife, Saundra Keeler, and I wrote our debut novel with alternating point of views of River Saxton and Aiden Jacobs, the two main characters. Each of us had created our character from the heart and built their world around it. We took turns writing chapters from our personal character’s point of view. It was a fun and interesting process, but we enjoyed it, and we are currently writing our second novel in the same format.

That leads me to our subject of the day: I want to talk to you all about the process of writing a book with two authors.

We have always written in a back and forth process since becoming writing partners in 2012, but when we decided to start writing Everything Comes Back to You, we had never written the amount we were committing to. We started off with a 50,000 word goal, and by the end of the novel, we had over 80,000 words. 

We find outlining to be more structured, so we did that before anything else. Our novel is a little different than most, because it has a time jump of five years in the middle (hence the YA and NA genre title). Because of our time jump, we wanted to make sure that it was a mostly equal combination of both timeframes. We took our goal and divided it in half. That was where we would most likely make our shift. We took those amounts (25,000), and divided them by 2,500 (our chapter goals) to give us the amount of chapters needed to meet our goals.

Getting the number of chapters needed to fill our book was the easy part. We would write them down in list form with dashes beside them, and we would begin filling in our major events (while deciding if it was an event both of us needed to write a chapter about), spacing them far enough apart to create growth between events. We really aimed for creating an emotional bond between the readers and the characters. Then we chose who would start the novel, and the opposite person ends would the novel.

Once the major events were penciled in, we filled in any other scene ideas and where they would fall on our outline. We don’t always have a lot to start, but we usually have a good idea. The ones that are blank, we write “filler”. These are usually filled in later if we think of something, or the person writing that chapter with come up with something on the spot that is productive for the novel.

Working as a team can sometimes be difficult. Agreeing on supporting characters and how they behave can be a challenge, all while both learning to control them the same way. Before we can ever start writing, we have to have a face, name, and personality to every character we plan to introduce, so that we are both comfortable writing them in any situation.

The main characters can be tough as well, but we enjoy asking the other author what their character would say or how they would react instead, making it true and genuine to the character as the creator sees it in their heart, but written in the point of view character’s charm. River and Aiden are our babies. Each of us favor our own to the point of feeling betrayed when our friends assume I write hers and she writes mine. It’s silly really.

Our chapters are mapped and our characters created, so then we choose the setting, the overall ambiance of their environments, and all the other details that go into setting the tone of the novel. I find the location fun, because we spend time researching the places we choose. Portraying everything well is important to us. 

After writing everything down, the first person begins the first chapter, and then it’s in the moment decision making and brainstorming until we feel like the story has been tied up. 

One great thing about co-authoring is two sets of eyes proofreading and editing the work. We each read it wholly once, and then we decide if anything needs to be added. Is there anything missing from the story?

Since creating this process, we have been successful in keeping our momentum. I can write my chapter better knowing that Saundra is covering a certain event. I can lead up to it in a way that is beneficial to the character development and all over quality of the novel. 

And that’s it! 

I hope you enjoyed learning about our process. As most authors do, we hope our effort shines through our work. If you have any questions on the writing process of co-authors, you can find me on instagram: @tesshybe

About Everything Comes Back to You:
River and Aiden had been inseparable since Aiden’s family moved in next door to their West Seattle home, nearly seven years prior to their senior year of high school. River Saxton was a seventeen-year-old who loved music and comics. Aiden Jacobs was a sixteen-year-old who loved painting and girls. They both bonded over their dysfunctional families and the love they shared for their small group of friends.

After another uneasy breakup and a moment of vulnerability, Aiden was in River’s room, and suddenly they were kissing.
With River’s innocence and Aiden’s identity on the line, two best friends struggle to define the line between friends and lovers. 

When River leaves for an incredible opportunity in Florida, Aiden is left wondering what more he could have done to keep his best friend from moving on.

Five years of experience, growth, and suffering passes before they see or speak to each other again. River moves back home, but he’s brought someone with him. Aiden wedges himself in the middle of everything. Are they getting a second chance at friendship, love, or both?




Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases.

Review: Aversion

Title: Aversion (The Mentalist Series #1)
Author: Kenechi Udogu
Page Count: 133
My Rating: 4 TURTLES: A great read, I definitely recommend.
*I received this book in exchange for an honest review
Amazon

Description:
For Gemma Green’s first time, things should have been straightforward. Find your subject, hold their gaze and push a thought into their head to save them from future disaster – Aversion complete. A pretty simple process given that the subject was to have no recollection of the experience. But Russ Tanner doesn’t seem to want to forget. In fact the more she tries to avoid him, the more he pushes to get to know her. Gemma knows she has a problem but is she facing the side effects of a failed Aversion or has the school’s tennis champ really fallen for her?

Review:

I’ve seen other reviewers compare this book to The Adjustment Bureau, and I definitely have to agree. Crossing The Adjustment Bureau with a contemporary YA novel and adding a dash of I Am Number Four is the closest I can come to describing this book. The combination works really well and the book grabbed and held my attention from start to finish. 

It is fun to see the popular-guy-falls-for-not-so-popular-girl trope of contemporary YA appear side-by-side with Gemma discovering secrets about her parents and developing her powers. Although some aspects of the plot were familiar, these familiarities did not come off as trite. This is possibly because the plot was so unpredictable. Each new twist made sense within the context of the story, but I did not see it coming.

One thing I wished had been different with this story, though, is that I wish it had been longer. Its short length does make it very past faced, with every scene moving the plot along. And, while I love it when books have a sense of urgency to them, I felt like there could have been some more scenes to flesh out the story more. I was thinking of other contemporary YA tropes and waiting for Gemma and Russ to go on a field trip together and bond or get to know each other better when they were assigned lab partners, but since everything was so lean there were not any of these extra scenes. I think if this book were longer it would have given me a better grasp of setting and character and made the conclusion more emotional. That said, I still really enjoyed this book and think it manages to do quite a lot in a short amount of time.

I would definitely recommend this book, especially to readers of YA. Also, if you read it and love it, books two and three are already out so there’s no agonizing wait for a sequel! 





Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases.

Cover Reveal: Ruthless Magic

Today Megan Crewe and Rockstar Book Tours are revealing the cover and an exclusive content for RUTHLESS MAGIC, her new YA Fantasy which releases May 30, 2018! Check out the awesome cover and enter the giveaway!

On to the reveal! 

Title: RUTHLESS MAGIC

Author: Megan Crewe

Pub. Date: May 30, 2018

Publisher: Megan Crewe

Formats: Paperback, eBook

Pages: ?

Find it: Goodreads, Pre-Order  

In the contest to keep their magic, the only options may be die... or kill.

Each year, the North American Confederation of Mages assesses every sixteen-year-old novice. Some will be chosen. The rest must undergo a procedure to destroy their magical ability unless they prove themselves in the mysterious and brutal Mages' Exam.

Disadvantaged by her parents' low standing, Rocío Lopez has dedicated herself to expanding her considerable talent to earn a place in the Confederation. Their rejection leaves her reeling-and determined to fight to keep her magic.

Long ashamed of his mediocre abilities, Finn Lockwood knows the Confederation accepted him only because of his prominent family. Declaring for the Exam instead means a chance to confirm his true worth.

Thrown into the testing with little preparation, Rocío and Finn find themselves becoming unlikely allies-and possibly more. But the Exam holds secrets more horrifying than either could have imagined. What are the examiners really testing them for? And as the trials become increasingly vicious, how much are they willing to sacrifice to win?

The start of a new series by USA Today bestselling author Megan Crewe, Ruthless Magic combines the magic of Harry Potter with the ferocity of The Hunger Games alongside a poignant romance. Fans of Cassandra Clare and Holly Black, look no further for your next urban fantasy fix!

 Grab the prequel MAGIC UNMASKED for FREE!

Exclusive Excerpt!

Hail pelted us, and the wind lashed at us from all sides. I could hardly breathe. The only solid thing was Finn. I curled my fingers into the damp fabric of his shirt and sang into the stiller space between us. "Como veían que resistía."

Magic hummed from the vicious air into me. An image swam up of the grate I'd come across in the courtyard, between the buildings. A grate that led to something below.

I knelt down, pulling Finn with me, and pressed my free hand to the spongy ground. The wind tried to steal my next lyrics from my lips, but the magic raced through me all the same-through me and down, down, into an open space I sensed below us like a gasp of fresh air.

I did gasp then, and forced out a verse. I'd never magically transported another person with me before, but I had to. I had to.

The magic rushed up around us with the thrust of my words. I clung to Finn, singing the energy around him as tightly as I could. Then I propelled us downward with a lurch.

We surged through rough blackness that rasped over my skin and landed with a feet-jarring thump. I exhaled in a rush, dizzy in the sudden quiet. My eardrums ached from the pounding of the storm we'd escaped and the effort of the conjuring.

We crouched in total darkness. The surface beneath me felt like concrete. Cold dank air hovered around us with a faintly salty flavor that reminded me of the ocean.

My fingers were tangled in Finn's shirt. His arm was still around me. In the dark, I was abruptly aware of the rise and fall of his rasping breath, the warmth of his chest, and the answering warmth it sent through me.

He was alive-we were alive-and in that moment, it felt like a miracle.

About Megan: 

Photo credit: Chris Blanchenot

Like many authors, Megan Crewe finds writing about herself much more difficult than making things up. A few definite facts: she lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband and son (and does on occasion say "eh"), she's always planning some new trip around the world, and she's spent the last six years studying kung fu, so you should probably be nice to her. She has been making up stories about magic and spirits and other what ifs since before she knew how to write words on paper. These days the stories are just a lot longer.

Megan's first novel, Give Up the Ghost, was shortlisted for the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. The Way We Fall was nominated for the White Pine Award and made the International Literacy Association Young Adults' Choices List, and Earth & Sky was an OLA Best Bet for 2015. She is also the author of the rest of the Fallen World series (The Lives We Lost, The Worlds We Make, and Those Who Lived), the rest of the Earth & Sky trilogy (The Clouded Sky and A Sky Unbroken), and the standalone contemporary fantasy A Mortal Song.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Tumblr | Goodreads

Giveaway Details:

One lucky winner will receive a $10 Amazon gift card and a pack of Ruthless Magic swag featuring the cover and character art.

Ruthless Magic cover reveal giveaway

Review: The Blood of Kings

Title: The Blood of Kings (Phoebe Pope #2)
Author: Nya Jade
Page Count: 374
My Rating: 4.5 TURTLES: A really great read, I highly recommend!
*I received this book in exchange for an honest review
Amazon

Description:
The thrilling, un-put-downable sequel to The Year of Four. According to the press, Phoebe Pope and teen movie star Colten Chase are no longer an item—which is just how the happy new couple like it. And yet there’s trouble in paradise . . . Phoebe is haunted by dreams that show her things she can’t possibly know about—including a pact between Colten and a wanted assassin. In the daylight, she struggles to keep a newly emerging power hidden, even as her hands itch to wield it. Meanwhile, in the wake of their escape from a Vigo crèche, Phoebe and her fellow Hyphas study under lock and key at the Campus Below. As the foursome wait to see who among them will fulfill the prophecy, someone dear to Phoebe is kidnapped by a powerful Vigo determined to use her to spy on the Shaper royalty. When the Hyphas are called to the Royal Court, Phoebe refuses to heed warnings of imminent danger for she will do whatever it takes to rescue her loved one. But once at court, nothing is as it first appears. A sinister force controls some royals, while others whisper behind closed doors about forbidden alliances. And as Phoebe draws on her courage to complete the task set by her enemy, she makes a startling discovery—one that upends her father’s memory. With dangerous conspiracies surfacing, Phoebe must uncover what the Royal Shapers really want from her, and decide whether there’s room for Colten in her unraveling life.

Review:

This was a super action-packed, exciting sequel to The Year of Four. We learn so much more about the magic of Phoebe's world, who she is, and the politics of her world, but also leaves us with as many questions as it answers! I guess I'll just have to wait until book three!

The view of The Blood of Kings expands way out, giving a much wider range of the world and history of the Shapers and the Vigos. Just like the first book, I was impressed with the world building in this book, especially since there is so much more of it. I also loved seeing how the Hyphas powers started to develop and learning more about what Vigos are and what they can do. The Blood of Kings' plot is filled with twists, turns and shocks that I did not see coming at all - some exciting, and some devastating.

This definitely isn't a sequel that you can just pick up without having read the first book already. If you haven't read The Year of Four yet though, you can read my review. This series is definitely worth your time and I highly recommend you check it out





Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases.

Review: Lotus and Thorn

Title: Lotus and Thorn
Author: Sara Wilson Etienne
Page Count: 464
My Rating: 4 TURTLES: A great read, I definitely recommend.
Amazon
*I was given this book in exchange for an honest review

About the Book:

A thrilling science fiction adventure perfect for fans of Tamora Pierce and Sarah Maas

Ravaged by a plague known as Red Death, the planet Gabriel, a former colony of Earth, is a barren wasteland. Since being abandoned by Earth 500 years ago, resources are scarce and life is cheap. To stay alive, the survivors, the Citizens, scavenge the remains of a now dead city, trading for food with the resource-rich Curadores, the only other survivors on Gabriel. Every old computer, every piece of wire, every scrap of metal counts. To steal is the ultimate sin. So when tough-as-nails seventeen-year-old Leica is caught doing just that, she's exiled and left to the mercy of Gabriel's unforgiving desert for the rest of her life. 

While in exile, Leica discovers a mysterious shuttle, which may not only lead her home, but even more impossible—reestablish contact with Earth. Then Red Death rears its head again, killing her entire work crew, leaving Leica all alone until a handsome Curador offers her refuge in the Dome—the only place on Gabriel untouched by Red Death, where a decadent and sultry life awaits. But there's a catch: Leica can only enter the Dome as his concubine—his Kisaeng. When a rogue group of Citizens see their chance for revolution in Leica's good fortune, she finds herself unraveling a deadly mystery with chilling answers to the true origin of Red Death and the reason Earth really abandoned them so long ago. 

A richly imagined fantasy in the vein of Tamora Pierce, Lotus and Thorn, is a magnificent, epic adventure.

Review:

I really enjoyed this book! I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get to, but it was certainly a good way to spend my flight back to college after going home for Easter break. Dystopian worlds (and many fictional worlds for that matter) fall into the pit of being extremely European and United States-centric. So after reading so many of those worlds, it was really cool to read a dystopia where the culture before the world went to pot was apparently a latino one. I love how the author envisioned the people would cling to certain traditions, and how they would evolve and change over time and how they would stay the same.

The characters often weren’t what they first appeared, and that made them interesting to read – and it kept me on my toes. There was quite a cast of them, but no one felt left in the wayside. They all added something to the story. (I also loved how all the Curadores were named after famous scientists, I thought that was an awesome addition!)

One thing that didn’t quite sit right with me about the story was the “big reveal” at the end. Without spoiling it, I think that part of the problem was that while it was a huge rug pull for the characters, there is a famous story that uses this exact same plot twist. Because of that, when I read it I wasn’t thinking “whoa, I didn’t see that coming” (even though I didn’t) I was thinking “oh, this is just like blank.” I think part of the reason why this reveal fell flat for me is that there was not enough foreshadowing for the reveal to not feel completely out of left field and abrupt, and because the story would have been strong enough on its own without the plot twist. The ending would not have even changed that much except that a few loose ends would have been explained differently and the characters would have had one less truth to integrate.

Lotus and Thorn is a gripping YA dystopian story of intrigue, family, and revolution. It is a real page turner and I highly recommend that you check it out.



Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases.